Bright Burning Stars

by A. K. Small

  As I inched my way deeper into the room, Marine close behind, I prayed that Louvet had written out the First Division sheet. Sometimes when The Witch scribbled down rankings, she scratched off a name and placed it somewhere else. Ink from her fountain pen dripped and splattered on the page. Dancers had to wait until other judges arrived to help decipher numbers and names. The worst part was the embarrassment of having to stand captive and witness everyone in the school taking in your ranking. Also, the longer you waited in the Board Room, the more the walls closed in. The more tears were shed. The more bitter the smell of disappointment.

  I was afraid for myself but even more afraid for M. The Witch had cut her off mid variation. Her ranking would be low. But how low? I wasn’t sure. Who knew where anyone stood so early in the year? Usually I had a good sense of who’d nailed a variation, but not today. Even my performance was gray. I’d been so aware of Marine dancing behind me that I’d forgotten my final set of turns.

  In front of us, one little girl in pale blue cried. Another threw her arms up into the air and spun around. Yet, as they recognized us, in our ivory leotards, the Fifth Division girls pulled themselves together and curtsied. I acknowledged them with a nod while Marine bent to kiss their cheeks.

  “No no,” I told her. It showed favoritism and a propensity for undue emotion, and was especially taboo in the Board Room. Yet she did it anyway.

  “They need comfort. What are they going to do? Arrest me? It’s so stressful. Don’t you remember us at that age?”

  “I try not to,” I answered. “I’m about the future, not the past.”

  “Why do you think The Witch brought you into the studio today? Was it to humiliate me?”

  I didn’t know. Maybe. “I think they’re trying to shake things up, to keep us guessing nonstop.”

  A group of older dancers huddled in the middle of the room. Ugly Bessy stood next to Isabelle, The Brooder. Bessy was unattractive, with a pug nose and eyes too close together. She counterbalanced her homeliness by spending time with Isabelle, who was beautiful but moody. Isabelle wore mascara so thick on her top lashes that she blinked extra slowly. They craned their necks, looking up at The Boards. Next to them was Short-Claire. She was repeating First Division in the hope that she might grow. The Ruler was nowhere in sight.

  As I studied each girl, des copines, or school pals—and the competition—I felt grateful for Marine, who was selfless and an accomplice to my dreams. But before I could share this with M, I noticed the First Division list.

  Front and center, it read:

  First Division Girls

  Gia Delmar

  Claire Roscot

  Marine Duval

  Kate Sanders

  Bessy Prévot

  Isabelle Bertrand

  Colombe Traux

  Marie-Sandrine Polico

  “Oh my God!” Short-Claire yelled. She clasped her palm to her mouth. “I’m Number Two!”

  This was ridiculous. I never dipped below a 3, never ranked beneath Marine or Claire.

  “How are these numbers possible?” I said. “You’re the one who screwed up, M. I danced out of turn for you.” But then I felt guilty for lashing out, so I added, “See? The Demigod’s talent is rubbing off. Claire couldn’t have gone up three spots in four days alone. Faculty must have seen them rehearse. Imagine getting him as an anchor partner. Then The Prize is yours.”

  Marine turned back to The Boards. “Anchor partners are mysterious assignments, Kate. No one knows why one First Division rat is paired up with a specific partner. Keep your drama for the stage.”

  I was about to snap back at her but when I spun around, The Demigod himself stood by the boys’ list not four feet from me. He elbowed Jean-Paul, another First Division rat, who was one of the best jumpers at Nanterre but also the resident creep and company drug dealer. I beelined over to them.

  This was my chance.

  When I got close to The Demigod, I felt a release, a pull everywhere, from the back of my head, down my neck, to somewhere between my hips. I linked my fingers with his as if we’d known each other for years. At the contact, I gasp-giggled. I wasn’t planning to run after him, much less grab his hand. But something made me. If I didn’t address my Board slip-up immediately, if I didn’t try to rectify my dire ranking, everything would go to hell. Unlike M, whose daily existence was saintlike—everything she did was for Oli, her tragically deceased twin—I danced here because my life’s mission was to keep reality hundreds and hundreds of miles away, because this was the cradle of the ballet world, and because I loved to dance more than anything in the universe. The stage and studios were the only places I felt grounded and alive. Well, and now I also felt it, this aliveness, standing next to The Demigod.

  Up close, and maybe because I hadn’t seen him since before summer vacation, Cyrille was even more beautiful and taller than I remembered. He smelled like the potent leather of his jacket and his lips were wine red. His tights shimmered and his fingers were soft, but his grip felt solid.

  “Hey,” I said, after suppressing my nerves. I hoped that the blue of my eyes would hypnotize him, and that, like in a fairy tale, The Demigod would fall madly in love with me right here in the Board Room.

  Cyrille looked down at our entwined fingers, then at my face.

  For a nanosecond, I was sure that he stroked my index finger with his thumb, shooting dragon fire up my arm, but then he unhooked his hand from mine and lifted an eyebrow.

  “Everything all right?” he said.

  Was he smiling? My stomach hurt and I’d have killed for a cigarette. I also knew that Marine would implode if she saw me and The Demigod touching, but I stayed rooted to the floor. I couldn’t help myself. I loved Marine more than rubies and sapphires, but I hadn’t been Number 4 on The Boards since Third Division. This was urgent.

  “So, M and I play this game, Would You. We could come up to your room after dinner and teach you?” That was juvenile. Would he laugh? At least I’d included Marine. After all, my crush on him was Marine’s crush too. One night last spring, a few weeks after his startling arrival, M and I had lined up our pairs of pointe shoes from newest to oldest to deadest and blushed like maniacs as we baptized him The Demigod because the combination of his looks and balletic skills made him seem unearthly.

  “M?” Cyrille repeated.

  “As in Marine,” I said.

  “And Would You is the game?” Cyrille asked.

  When I nodded, he grinned, making me swoon.

  There was an awkward silence, so I added, “You know, a truth-or-dare kind of thing.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting about the house rules?” Cyrille asked. “The no girls on the boys’ floor? The dorm patrollers?”

  “Maybe we should play now then,” I said. I didn’t want our conversation to end or the space between us to grow. I felt certain that if I stayed close to him, everything would fall into place.

  From where I was, I could see Marine in my peripheral vision. She waited, one foot outside of the doors, eyebrows arched high. If she’d been next to me, she would have corrected Cyrille. “The Cardinal Rules,” she’d have said. She would have also nixed playing Would You, not even one question, in the middle of the Board Room where anyone could hear us. But she wasn’t next to us.

  My heart thrashed around. What could I ask that would matter?

  “Would you tell me if you thought I was a good dancer?”

  “Yes.” He looked me in the eyes, then he pointed to himself and to the First Division rat-boys lingering beneath The Boards. “Would you consider dancing in the company with one of us?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking I might die right there at his feet.

  Cyrille nodded almost imperceptibly, said, “See you later,” but stayed where he was, then turned to Jean-Paul and asked him something about men’s class.

  Wait. Se
e you later. Was I hallucinating? Had The Demigod asked me out? Because why was he still standing next to me? Did he want me to come up and visit him? Or had it just been goodbye? No, we had a connection. I was sure of that. For the first time in forever I felt hours away from stardom.

  “I’ll drop by after dinner,” I said.

  I walked toward Marine, watching as everyone dispersed. Short-Claire, flanked by Ugly Bessy and Brooding Isabelle, sauntered by Cyrille, smiling in his direction. He ignored her, making her eyes fill. Isabelle hugged her. For a second, I pitied Claire, even ached for her. But then I glanced at The Boards once more and hung on to the thrilling feeling of my fingers fused with his, how his glow had shimmered down on me like a fine mist. My ratings would change within the week. I knew it.

  “He asked me out, M.” Okay, not exactly true but close enough. “While we were playing Would You. I’m supposed to go to his room later.”

  Marine narrowed her eyes. “Would You? What about our Moon Pact?”

  “What about it?”

  “Isn’t that more important than any boy?”

  “Of course it is. We’re everything despite what might happen with Cyrille.”

  “What do you mean might happen?”

  “Forget it,” I said. “You take things way too seriously.”

  After The Boards and before community chores, I asked M to Beyoncé. When one of us was upset, the other would play Queen Bey’s songs as loud as the hall surveillants would allow. It was an invitation to take ten, to reboot. In our buns and leotards—and sometimes sunglasses—M and I would clutch hairbrushes, pretending they were microphones. We’d loosen up our hips and strike poses, belting out who run the world or put a ring on it, a welcome change from the strict world of ballet.

  Yet at the offer tonight, M hesitated. “Still doing homework,” she said.

  She sat on her quilt, this lacy patchwork of teeny mirrors and bright threads, surrounded by her ballet posters, reading. I didn’t tell her that I was still going to see The Demigod later. After mulling it over and over during dinner, I’d decided that visiting him was only fair. I’d been up to the boys’ floor before. Plus, I’d given him my word. I would find his room, wrap myself in his magic, then tell M everything.

  “Please?” I said, searching for “Dangerously in Love.”

  M glanced up from her book and frowned.

  As Beyoncé sang, I mouthed you’re my relation in connection to the sun. I batted my eyelashes and shimmied my shoulders. When none of these moves inspired M to leap off her bed, I put my hands over my head and swayed, but Marine went back to reading.

  “Want to do it on ‘Formation’ instead?”

  M shrugged.

  I said, “Remember how I told you that I started this game because I was trying to impress you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Marine flipped a page.

  “Well, it’s true. You were so much nicer than everyone else, even back then. You never teased me about my terrible French or about the weird stuff my dad used to send me.”

  “Used to?” Marine smiled.

  Suddenly, I missed home. I missed my dad, even though I knew he was always doing the wrong thing, like sending me ballet overalls that were gray and polyester instead of black and 100 percent wool, or long-sleeved leotards.

  But then she said, “Remember when I grabbed your hand behind The Witch’s back?”

  “When you told me that it was okay to wear a sparkly blue gymnastics leotard while the rest of you were dressed in white Petit Bateau tank tops and underwear? Yes.” That January morning still felt like yesterday. An iris amidst a sea of daisies, Valentine Louvet had whispered in my ear. “How about when you wrote my dad a postcard, offering to take good care of me?”

  “Or when we slept in the same bed in Fifth because we were sick with a fever or scared of the dark.”

  “How could we forget?” I said.

  I pulled a small flask full of glitter from my desk, popped the cap open, and before Marine could protest I threw the gold up into the air, tiny crystals raining onto our heads, shoulders, then rug, making us both burst out laughing.

  “You’re crazy,” Marine said.

  Coated in glitter, the two of us swung our hairbrushes and sang about never leaving, about seeing the future in our eyes, about being dangerously in love, about raindrops, seeds, and sunlight. As we danced, Marine undulated her body. She anticipated every lyric, every chord, whether from a violin or from an electric guitar. She always knew when to freeze, how to make the most of silent beats. After a while, we both closed our eyes until one song merged with another, until we Beyoncé’d ourselves silly and collapsed onto the rug among the sparkles, still laughing.

  Marine said, “Know what I miss most about summer?”

  “Madame Arabian pet naming you her papillon?”

  Madame Arabian was M’s beloved pre-Nanterre ballet teacher, the one who kept us in shape every July and August and who’d taught M’s twin brother how to dance when he was still alive.

  Marine wiped glitter from her shoulder. “I miss us falling asleep in the attic.”

  After we’d been lying down for some time, I added, “I’m sorry about playing Would You without you.”

  M sat up, then pecked my cheek the same way she’d pecked the little girls in the Board Room.

  “You’re forgiven,” she said.

  The maternal gesture sent a wave of gratitude down my back.

  three

  Marine

  Kate and I became best friends the night we crept up to the forbidden circular studio. We were twelve years old then, four years away from The Demigod marching into our lives. We’d just been promoted to Fifth Division. It was past curfew, the night before summer break. In our quad, I lay in my twin bed, unable to sleep. My stomach rumbled. As I tossed and turned, I wondered about the earlier cuts, about what our old roommates, Sylvie and Delphine, were doing since they’d been thrown out of Nanterre. Were they crying on their parents’ shoulders? Or out at a fancy restaurant gorging themselves on roasted duck, no longer caring about their pencil-like bodies?

  I should have been ecstatic—I had made it—but in the dark all I could do was run my palms against my chest. I tried not to feel the strange swell of breast buds beneath my cotton nightgown, how tender that part of me was and how I hoped the little bumps would soon go back to where they came from. “J’ai survécu ma première année. I survived year one, O,” I whispered in the darkness. Back then I liked to steal these quiet moments to connect with my twin, once my closest confidant, whose ashes now resided in an urn above our mother’s mantel, kilometers from Nanterre. I was about to tell him that the school wasn’t as dreamy as he’d imagined, yet that I was keeping the promise I’d made him anyway, that if all went well, if I didn’t put on weight, if my chest didn’t grow any more during summer, if I took barre and extra private lessons with Madame Arabian, I might be asked to participate in pointe class when I returned to Nanterre in the fall. A step in the right direction: if Oli couldn’t join the company, I would do it for him.

  Yet, instead of sharing this silently, like I normally did, I sat up and whispered again, eyes on the ceiling, “T’imagines, Oli? Moi sur pointes? Me wearing pointe shoes?”

  “Oli?” Kate startled me. “You speak with a ghost?”

  Back then Kate still had her American accent when she spoke French and her sentences were always slightly off, too formal, too casual, or worded incorrectly. It took about two years—until our entrance into Third—for Kate to speak fluently, though much later I could always tell when she was nervous because her American accent would surface. Kate clicked on her night-light and sat up, too. I didn’t want to answer her about the ghost part. The truth was that I never spoke about Oli out loud; it made his death too real.

  “Look,” Kate said.

  In the glow of the light, she lifted a shoebox onto he
r covers. She opened the lid and pulled out a pair of turquoise pointe shoes from under a piece of tissue paper.

  “I waited to show you until the others were gone.”

  She pointed to the two empty beds on the other side of the room. One of the strange traditions at Nanterre was never to speak the names of rats who’d been sent home out loud. Once gone, gone was The Witch’s phrase.

  I ogled the slippers. I’d never seen turquoise pointe shoes before. “Your dad?”

  “Yes.” Kate slipped out of bed and brought me the shoes. “I will practice in them this fall.”

  I ran my fingers over the satin and giggled. “You can’t wear those to class,” I explained.

  “Why not?” Kate said. “The shoes go well on my feet.”

  Kate sat on the floor and tried one. Sure enough, the slipper fit. Her instep was high, and as she pointed her foot, the sea blue satin bent like a moon crescent. Un coup de pied canon. Killer feet was how older dancers referred to Kate’s deep arches.

  I sighed. “These are old, already worn. See?” I pointed to the soles. There was a gash in the middle and the toe box was soft at the tip.

  “I like these,” Kate said.

  She didn’t wear nightgowns like all the other rat-girls. Instead, Kate wore shorts and a tank top, which made her look boyish but in a good way.

  “Maybe your dad got them for you as a decoration?”

  “Decoration?” Kate scowled at me. She stepped back to her bed and rummaged through the shoebox. “Here,” she said, brandishing a piece of stationery paper. “I translate: Dear Kate, I found these in a bin on the sidewalk outside the ballet store near campus. I thought you could wear them. Love, Dad.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “In the costume room, some of the older rats say that there are lots of shoes to choose from.”

  Kate shoved her pointe shoes back into the box, then slipped them beneath her bed.